Well lookie what I found in the tank.....right, smack dab in the middle of what used to be a large patch of palys.....the palys had been receding a bit but I thought this was due to a recent move where I put them under an overhang....big sucker....wonder how long its been in the tank?....wonder if there are any more?

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3428.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3429.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3430.jpg

What is it? I take it it's bad

WOW, that's a doozy!:lol:

Looks like a sundial?.....but different colors... or a heliacus.. again different colors

I havnt been able to find a positive ID yet but Im thinking it is not so good.


Heres a couple pics of a new addition....I picked up a couple "Lace Corals"....they are kinda like non-photosynthetic sps....closely related to fire corals....from what I understand they are somewhat hard to come by.....I placed them out in the light to get pics of them but will tuck them in the shade somewhere.....the one looks blue in the pics but is actuall more the color of grape kool-aid......oh-yeah!

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3439.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3440.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3442.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3443.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3444.jpg

This guy has definitely been well fed!! :lol:

Doug the "lace corals" look very cool!

By the way, before I scrolled down, all I could see the penny in that photo with the snail Cationed "looky what I found"...I was thinking the worst..

No....everything is good Aaron....well almost everything....I recently switched from dosing with Tailored Aquatics for Ca and Mg, to dosing with Randy's recipe....I dosed what was recommended for my tank and after a week, all of "the big three" were low.....Ca 340, Mg 950:surprise::surprise: and DKH 8.5. The recipe calls for dosing the Mg after you go through a gallon of each of the DKH and Ca, but I obviously will have to dose some in between somewhere....my tri-color nana has completely lost its purple tips....I have a green stag thats browning....amazing how it can take week/months for things to colour up and only a week to brown things out.....looks like Im going to be Mr Test-it again for a while.

Heres some pics of stuff that still looks good.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3446.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3448.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3450.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3451.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3454.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3457.jpg

wow, love those lace corals doug. I'm going to have to snag a couple myself. They're great for putting underneath overhangs and cave like areas as they are non photosyntetic I believe.

Ive been a little quiet lately.....the tank had its first hiccup....its currently going through a large (to me) die off....here is some of the victims...

Pink/red millipora....dead
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0001-2.jpg

watermelon favia....dead
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0003-1.jpg

candycane....dead
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMG_0004.jpg

acan....dieing
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0009-2.jpg

and these acros all browned out and look like butt
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0006-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0008-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0010-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0011-1.jpg


Im not sure exactly what happened....as I posted earlier, my "big three" dropped way low after a change to my dosing....but thats it....everything else tests out fine.....

Oh man Doug.......ouch! That must hurt!:cry:

Wow Doug thats a bummer...

That does suck, sorry man. FWIW, I empathize. Honestly, I think it's something of a rite of passage in a mixed tank. Although it could well be the change in dosing. Things literally can be that sensitive to change. It's not that one method is better or worse than another, but the bump in the road caused by changing methods has ripple effects. If it is the change in methods, just stay the course, changing back will only make it worse .. things *should* bounce back eventually.

Use the force Doug. We know you can bounce back!

Oh Crap, Doug! Sorry to hear. Hopefully things will rebound soon.

Doug sorry to hear!

Doug..sorry to hear about the problems you are having.
There is not much I can offer a master like you, but if I can help let me know. I do have some Candycane that I can frag if you would like.

Ugh...that sucks Doug! :(

Some props to Doug's "plain" brown birdsnest.

Way back when after my tank crashed on Thanksgiving, Doug being the awesome guy he is gave me this tiny frag of what he called plain brown birdsnest. So way back at the end of December I added this frag to my system.

This is what it looks like today. So Doug, man do you make nice "plain" brown frags.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0191-1.jpg

Whatever it is that you're doing, please keep it up!

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

The tank seems to be coming back slightly from its case of the hiccups....I didnt loose any more lps and the sps that browned are showing signs of getting their color back.

Between the die-off and my regal tang, it is becoming apparent that lps and my tank do not mix well.....I will likely be selling a couple more lps pieces before either my regal takes them out or I loose them for some other reason....so keep your eyes on the buy/sell forums lps lovers.... another reason I need to move a couple pieces is I am picking up two more clams from Lawrence (still shocked and bummed that you are getting out bud) tonight and have literally nowhere to put them:neutral:

Wow Catherine its really taken off and looks killer in your tank.....thanks for the props.:redface:

well....Im happy with the tank again.....I didnt loose any more lps, other than the ones I already posted and things that browned out are showings signs of coloring up again.

My two tri-colors that looked like crap three weeks ago,starting to come around
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0006-2.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3479.jpg

And due to an unfortunate incident where exposure to saltwater apparently corroded Lawrence's (Pazil) brain and he decided to go back to cichlids, I was able to score these two clams and a nice frag of A. Prostrata:razz: (I am just messin witcha bye)
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3480.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3481.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3482.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3473.jpg

Good to see things turning around for you

Haha, I seem to remember SOMEONE saying "boy what's with all the clams." Those are some nice scores! What's the count now? :)

That brings the count up to ....eleven......my gorsh....Im a clamaddict:lol:....somebody help me...

Well I can sleep at night again. Kidding glad to hear things are rockin' again. That prostrata looks killer! Sign me up for some scraps =)

oh dear god. you do have a serious case of the "clap"

I am eagerly awaiting your clam tank add-on build thread. You've provisioned your new sump for that too right??? Hehe

Apparently its a big deal for me to be happy with the tank.....my g/f noticed the direct effect the tank seems to have on my general mood....probably why she is temporarily droppin the NNTC she imposed upon me and allowing my little add-on....

On that note I might as well make it official and post it here.....I am gonna attempt to plumb in a small 25g seahorse tank to the main system. I say attempt because after talking with a few peeps about it and doing a bit of reading its gonna be a challenge because my display routinely hits the low 80s in the summer and this is too warm for most horses. I thought about fans and possibly an ice probe. That would probably be a waste of money as I doubt that anything I do on the small tank will counter-act the 140g of 82* water in the rest of the system. So for now the plan is to keep trying to think of a way to get the g/f her ponies, but Im almost sure that I will end up taking the add-on tank in a different direction....like yasha/pistol:biggrin: or maybe dwarf fuzzy:biggrin:.....oh ya....the seahorses*focuses on the task at hand*......Ok, so with the systems current volume of 130g and considering I am what some may say slightly heavily stocked, my euro-reef 135 is having a hard time keeping up with the systems skimming needs as it is.....so an upgrade would have to happen before any increase in volume or bio-load can happen.....after carefully taking all the measurements(I thought), I started to weigh my options readily available through the store....deltec, vertex, oddysea, tunze, hydor, and BK....a couple of them both fit into the skimmer section and under the display height wise, so after an agonizing .005 of a second I decided on the BK mini 200:biggrin:....then after telling Kevin what I want, I was sitting staring at the tank one evening and it dawns on me.......28" between the bottom of the sump and the display above it, minus the 20" tall sump = 8".......footprint of the BK200 is 12"x12".......duh BK no go into sump.....so I now have a custom sump on the way that should be ready hopefully by next week....I told the g/f that it wouldnt cost that much to add a small tank to the system....she believed me:twised:

I seriously thought about buying Johnnybye's cube and doing just that:mrgreen:.....but with the $$$$$ I am shelling out for the 25g addition, that will have to wait.

25g seahorse or clam tanks both would make an nice addition. With Jonnybye cube tank. You can tell the girlfriend. This old thing, I had it for years :biggrin:!

Yeah ....it hitch-hiked its way in....yeah

Heres some shots that I took through a new E-shops coral viewer with my non-waterproof canon(usually top downs and macro shots are taken with my waterproof PAS)

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0001-3.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0002-2.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0003-2.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMG_0005.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0010-2.jpg

That really helped your shots out nicely done.

How do you plumb another tank into a system? I'm guessing you'd want the new tank to be anywhere that's above sump level and just need to have room for your display AND the new tanks runoff for a power out?

Awesome!!

I have the display plumbed with a check valve in the return line so the only water that drains from the display in a "power out" scenario is the water that is in the return line below the check valve and the water in side the overflow box.... I swap out the check valve once a year to clean the seal on the "flapper".....gonna plumb the small tank the same way.....also the new sump is 3" wider and 6" longer , but 5" shorter according to the math I should have more than enough room for drainage...

More "coral viewer" pics

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0011-2.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0015-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0018-2.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0019-1.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0021-2.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0022-2.jpg

I have to pick my jaw up off the floor as usual Doug. :razz:

awesome pics/corals

Thanks guys and Gal for the kind words....

These next shots were taken with the waterproof PAS....This was the first time Ive ever turned all the flow off in the tank to take pics....

Surface reflection shot a la Snappy
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3458.jpg


http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3459.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3460.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3461.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3464.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP3468.jpg

Holy that made a big difference!

I that first shot...the gap between reflection and corals is getting pretty tight. Those will be peeking out of the water someday soon!